Ionia County crop yields: Better than some, not as good as others statewide

Friday

Sep 28, 2012 at 9:29 PMSep 30, 2012 at 12:11 AM

Like many other producers across Michigan, Ionia County farmers expect to do well – or not – depending on where they are, thanks to a particularly fickle Mother Nature this year.

By Karen Botakaren.bota@sentinel-standard.com

IONIA COUNTY — Like many other producers across Michigan, Ionia County farmers expect to do well – or not – depending on where they are, thanks to a particularly fickle Mother Nature this year.

In August, all 83 Michigan counties, including Ionia County, were named primary natural disaster areas for drought and excessive heat conditions by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The designation means farm operators may be eligible for low interest emergency loans from the USDA's Farm Service Agency.

The weather impact in the county has been "a little all over the board," said Jenifer Taylor, county executive director of the Ionia County Farm Service Agency office.

Fruit producers were hit hard in the spring from the early warming and late frost, particularly the apple and cherry trees. The summer drought and heat hit row crops, but the north end of the county got a little more rain than the south side of the county, Taylor said.

"With soybeans, there might be a decent yield if it rains," she said. "Most of them are turning, so they are not taking up a lot of moisture."

However, the scene is not as bright for corn. "Much of the corn has already been chopped for silage," she said.

The alfalfa cuttings were "slim" in midsummer, said Taylor, but are coming back some.

"People are getting a third and fourth, and hoping for a fifth cutting," she said. "Mixed hay is harder to guess, and yields are inconsistent anyway. But they are all down for the total year."

On Keith Gorby's acreage, which is mostly in Orange Township, things are looking pretty good this year.

"My crops aren't bad like a lot of people," said Gorby, who grows corn, soybeans and wheat on KEG Farms. "All three came up well this year."

Gorby said he has "better than average corn," and soybeans, which he hasn't harvested yet, "look good.

"Farther south of here, they told me they've got the best beans they've ever had," he said. "They think their corn might be 60 percent of what they are used to. It's really up and down in a lot of different areas."

Gorby attributes the variation in crop success, and the ability to overcome the drought and heat, to seed selection, fertilization and weather."It depended on Mother Nature and the rains – where they came and how much," he said.John Lich, who farms in Sebawa Township, called this summer's drought "devastating – the worst since 1988 I went through." Yet he did not fare too badly."The difference is our hybrids are so much superior and are able to tolerate so much more," he said. "Instead of everything being wiped out like it was back then, it varies a lot."

Lich said he has the best soybean yield he has ever had, calling it "a beautiful, beautiful crop of beans.

"We had enough rain at the right time," Lich said, adding that unless farmers had sandy soil, were by shady woods or were where deer chewed the beans down, they likely had an "excellent" crop.

Lich called his corn yield "extremely variable.

"I ran corn today at 28 bushels per acre and 210 bushels per acre. In a good year, we approach 200 bushel an acre. This year it will be about 50 bushels an acre less than that, 150 to 160 bushel," he said. "Fifty bushels less is quite a hit, but it's not a devastating year for us. We're going to be one of the luckier ones."

Lich credits his "luck" to fairly heavy dirt, getting the crops in early and a rain during pollination. Some of his neighbors have no corn at all. With any stress on the fields – sandy soil, shade or deer, or a delay in planting, the yield can decrease to almost nothing.

"It's been a strange year. This was not a year to tolerate extremes," he said.

With hay yields down, livestock producers have to decide what they're going to feed if they didn't have hayage or silage to put up, Taylor said. Some producers across Michigan have had to sell off animals they couldn't afford to feed.

"We don't know if they're making decisions on that," she said, adding that some emergency haying was done on conservation land that normally would not be hayed, so the county have less of a reduction.

"They could use other feed. We've baled corn stocks before," she said. "They cows don't appreciate it too much, but producers said it's better than feeding them snowballs."

Taylor said her office has not had many reported losses yet. "A lot of (producers) have irrigation systems in place, so they may not have gotten hit as hard."

Neither has the FSA received any requests for emergency loans from Ionia County producers at this point. Part of the reason for this, according to Sara Possehn, farm loan officer in the FSA office, is that borrowers must first try to secure commercial financing.

"The requirements for the emergency loans, similar to any of our loans, is they must be unable to get commercial financing from Greenstone or any company that does ag financing," she said, adding this is because the FSA is not in competition with the commercial sector. Generally, FSA loans are at "a little bit lower" interest rate, and there is a limited amount of funding available.

"We're essentially a steppingstone for people starting up a farm, or struggling with a farming operation," said Taylor.

The other reason Possehn cited for the lack of emergency loan requests is that the producer must have suffered at least a 30 percent loss to be eligible. Then the borrower would have to deduct any money received from crop insurance.

"Being as (damage) was so scattered, even a mile apart there can be a huge difference between crops in that mile," Possehn said. "It's probably going to be a smaller loan amount than they need or could get from somewhere else."

Livestock producers are eligible if their feed costs are exaggerated this year due to the crop loss, she said.

Producers are "waiting anxiously" for the farm bill to make its way through Congress. Taylor said the disaster program in the current farm bill only covered disaster events through the end of 2011, and it expires Sept. 30.

Congress has done extensions on the farm bill in the past, Taylor said, "but earlier this year they said they absolutely would not do that. They are getting down to the wire. And they're looking at impact across the country."